Abstract: A fluorimetric method based on ethidium bromide/DNA system was used for preliminary screening of some platinum and palladium complexes with potential antitumour activities.14 complexes of palladium and platinum with ammonia or bidentate amine as the first ligand, and nitrate, bovine serum albumin(BSA) or dextran sulphate(DS) as the second ligand were studied.The antitumour activities of complexes and the associated constants of these complexes with DNAwere estimated.At the low concentration level the association reaction between complexes and DNAwas of intercalation mode for small ligands such as nitrate; while for macromolecular lig-ands such as BSAor DSthe intercalation mode was not the unique reaction mode.The results of the proposed fluorimetric screening method are in reasonable agreement with those obtained by other in vitro screening procedures.

Key words: Fluorimetric screening test, Pt(Ⅱ)and Pd(Ⅱ) complex, Antitumour activity